May, 1961

Creating a “World Religion”

 

IF OUR LUCK HOLDS we may still have time to outline a World Religion, done to fit the several levels of intelligence. In response to my request for information in the last Huna Vistas, I had a most gratifying response. There came in letters and prophecies dealing with the next cosmic disaster, some excellent article material, and some pointed questions.

WE HAVE “THREE GUESSES” I would say. First that the thin skin of the earth will break at the South Pole, where the weight of ice increases each year and where the crust may crack, causing the whole of the crust to move around, break up, push into ridges to form mountain chains to elevate ocean floors, and to cause lands now above water to sink. The second guess is that the ice mass at the South Pole will cause the “Polar Flip” and put the tropics in the arctic regions, as, apparently, has been done in the past, there being found tropical growth evidence under the present polar regions – coal in the South Pole mountains of today, for one thing. Such a flip would, it is said, be accompanied by crust movements, floods and volcanic activities, all adding up to the survival of a few, like an Adam and Eve pair to start re-populating the earth. The foregoing are the popular guesses of today. The third guess was the one on which I needed most information and got none at all. It is that of Donnelly, in his old book, Ragnarok, mentioned in HV20. His guess was that, in addition to other possible causes, the one supported by the legends and physical evidence of the glacial “DRIFT” (clay and gravel, mainly) there might have been a brush with a comet or very large meteor, and if the earth simply passed through the tail of a comet it would be burned in such a way that the melting of rock surfaces could be thus explained. The comet might even cause a polar flip, or could melt so much ice that the ocean levels would rise suddenly. In any event, Donnelly pointed out, there was some cause for a blast of cold air following the first blast of heat. If the burning of air caused a center of air expansion at first, a following contraction would come when the heat dissipated, and, as we all know, such contraction would cause temperatures to fall in a fantastic manner. Squeeze air enough and one gets “liquid air,” which is cold, cold, cold.

CONSIDER THE PROBLEM OF THE FROZEN MAMMOTHS uncovered in Siberia. The deep freeze hit them so suddenly that they froze where they stood, one famous one with a buttercup on his tongue. The grasses in mouths and in stomachs showed an almost instant freezing that prevented chewing or the start of digestion. Then something like a great hurricane dropped tons of earth and gravel to bury the poor beasts. This powerful hurricane broke bones and left no doubt that it had played its part. But, the mammoths were not burned. However the one best studied showed that he had died of asphyxiation while standing on his feet, and had, at the same time, some bones broken and his whole body frozen stiff before being covered with the material which now makes the frozen tundra. I rise to ask, curiously, what it was caused the asphyxiation? Had the oxygen been burned from the air at a distance, and was this what came along, followed by a blast of cold and the fall of materials carried by the hurricane – or in the meteor or tail of the comet?

AS TO THE PROPHESIES OF CALAMITY, my great trouble is to decide which prophet to believe. Edgar Cayce places the next comeuppance at any time after 1958, so time may be well run out. (See the magazine “Searchlight” for March, 1961 for a condensation of his predictions bearing on the flips and ups and downs of the tired old earth.) Other prophets have, for some years, had the trouble starting at dates ranging from the year 1900 right up to the present, with nothing at all coming to match their dire dates. (The “Four Corners” region in western U.S.A. was supposed by some to be the only safe place when the bottom dropped out, and my good friend Meade Layne, long editor of ROUND ROBIN, used to advise us to run for the hills. There is a section in Monument Valley, on the Navaho Indian Reservation, which shows no evidence of ever having been submerged, as have most of the other parts of our West from Utah to Death Valley.)

MY FAVORITE PROPHET is a gentleman who called on me for several hours recently and who told me that the wonderful beings from Venus were speaking often to him and that they had predicted that in the middle of April (I write this on the 11th of that month), the world catastrophe would come to pass and the Pacific Coast fall with quakings and volcanic action into the depths of the Pacific. I was, very naturally, much concerned for my own precious skin, but he soothed me by looking at me with psychic vision, which was confirmed by his lady companion, and seeing on my noble brow that “mark of the rose,” which has been placed on the brows of the 1400 odd whom the Great Ones of Venus have selected to be “snatched into the air” or otherwise rescued come the day of trouble. This prophet has been promised that if the trouble starts, he will be warned in his home in Los Angeles by having his room suddenly fill with spirits, so he can flee to the high ground and avoid the first action, that of a great tidal wave that will account for most of the denizens of the low lying parts. He promises to phone me long distance if time allows, so I can also be on high ground and with my bag packed ready to be “snatched into the air” and perhaps saved from whatever is to come. (I wonder how it will be on Venus.) The date first given him was the middle of March, but this was put off a month. Yesterday a strong quake in central California broke most of the windows in the stores of the town of Hayworth, on the big fault which runs through California and along which quakes have a habit of developing. If you do not receive this issue of Huna Vistas, you will know what happened, and please address all later mail care of Planet Venus. I am kidding, of course, but here is a serious thought: if one has to go by way of calamity, how nice to be able to go with a buttercup on one’s tongue!

BY THE WAY, a Russian scientist recently spoke of the explosion in Siberia in or around 1908 (as I recall the date) which knocked over forests for miles and miles around and scorched trunks in a strange way that made him suspect atomic fission of sorts. Could it have been a small meteor? I wonder.

A LATER REPORT has come in from the gentleman whose letter was given in the last HV, and who believes that his Aumakua speaks directly to him in words, (He has given me permission to give his name and address, and has now joined us as a new HRA. Gary A. Watts, 1472 Mt. Whitney Dr., San Jose 27, Calif.) It will be remembered from his letter that he had followed instructions from the inner voice which he believes to be his Aumakua, and had tried to help a fellow worker, “Jerry,” with immediate success. He reports that the improvement continues, which is psychic instructions – good news – and encourages us all to follow hunches or any psychic instructions in our efforts to Serve. In answer to a question as to just how the voice is heard, he writes that it is nothing heard with the ears, but is like receiving a telepathic message. The thoughts just come to one. He makes no special effort to contact the entity behind the voice, and it comes as of its own volition. He says of Jerry, “He is gaining more control over his Aunihipili every day and his sense of values is getting higher and higher. I helped him to remove a fear complex last week, and his Aunihipili released or burned up the stored up energy that was associated with the complex. It made him ashamed that his Aunihipili could still get control of him like that, but I told him that it was a good thing that it happened because the Aunihipili had to get rid of it and the sooner the better.”

CONCERNING “VOICES”, another HRA writes from San Francisco of her experiences. I quote: “Concerning the voice of the Aumakua: I have made direct contact with my High Self several times. I have also, I think, contacted God through my grandson who died. His mother was so heartbroken when Michael died that I was greatly worried about her. I awoke the next morning and was building mana and praying so hard. I heard a voice say, ‘I’ll take it to God for you,’ and it was Michael speaking. There was a sphere of beautiful colors which went spinning away until I could barely see it. I also heard indescribably beautiful music. Finally, there was a shower of light like a bursting skyrocket, so far away I could hardly see it, slowly descending, and the message came, ‘He says He will bless her, but it will be slow, taking a long period of time.’ I knew it was Michael. I was wide awake and it was not a dream. So, I know that if the situation is bad enough, we can bypass our High Selves.” (This is still another angle of the problem of whether or not the prayers must go via the Aunihipili to the High Self, and, if necessary, be sent by it on to still higher Beings, and, in theory, even to Ultimate God, which mechanism seems to fit Huna as we have so far reconstructed it. M.F.L.)

“And I can contact my Aumakua in an emergency. I’ve done it several times. A wonderful thing happened to me this week. I do my meditation in the morning before my family gets up, and we’d had rather a bad time for a couple of days. My aka cord I can feel a bit to my right side. I was working on us, hard, and I seemed to see a shadowy cord and right over to the left there suddenly was a wider pathway going up too. And suddenly, something poured back down the path to me, which I took to be my blessing, for a voice said blessings will be coming and will keep coming to bring me out of these troubles. A weight lifted off my shoulders. Lately I have had sudden intuitions, things just seem to pop up.

“Not a voice; I guess it is telepathic. The words just form for me …. and there, I knew it all along:” (She tells of following the intuitional guidance successfully and expresses confidence that things will be worked out properly for her.) “I find that if I ask help for someone, all of a sudden that person gets a break or finds peace and happiness. They think luck was on their side. I know Huna was.”

HRA VERNE L. CAMERON, our famous dowser and investigator of strange beams and forces, writes concerning direct contact with the Aumakua: “I was glad to read in your last H.V. of the possibility of your adopting the belief I hold, that no reference to the Aunihipili or subconscious need be made in contacting the Aumakua, or Superconscious or Guardian Angel,  all of which I consider the same. I talk to my Aumakua very frequently, getting his advice and help in everything from map dowsing on down, and I leave my subconscious alone to do his full-time job of recording thoughts and incidents and observations into my memory book without interruption. I treat the Aunihipili as I would a good, obedient dog, with little reasoning power, but a great desire to please me. Furthermore, I believe our prayers are lifted only through the aid of the Aumakua, and through Him, perhaps through Jesus, or perhaps he is a licensed carrier Himself and is a part of Jesus. My Guardian tells me he is assigned to me by God and is a part of God in as much as He is a part of the angelic forces specially trained and dedicated to the job of being a Guardian or ‘Neanes’ as he and the others spell their title. My Guardian, ‘Peter Autrines,’ tells me he has been a Guardian for 4600 years, but previous to that he was an angel since before the world was created. And I believe he and the other angels, untold millions of them, did the actual thinking out and construction of the world and the universe, and when it was running smoothly they were assigned to the human beings as they came along, and instead of sitting and twiddling their thumbs, they ride herd on us, instructing by suggestion and guiding   as David said, actually ‘Holding us up with their hands, lest we knock our foot against a stone, that is, if we lean on them in times of stress. But if we deny their existence or ignore them, we may not only stumble but fall. Peter has saved my life three times by yelling in my ear in a loud, startling, audible voice when I was otherwise alone, and that is the only reason I am here today. It was startling and spectacular in each case, and made my hair stand on end. Had I not followed his orders, ‘Hold it, hold it, hold it’ I would almost surely have been killed in each of three instances, being knocked off a mountain side, running into a deep river where the bridge was out, or running into a flock of cows around a bend of the road in a cornfield. Maybe I am egotistical in thinking that I have a bright, full grown angel all my own for as long as I live, and for a short time after I pass over, but what better has he got to do than to help one who is trying to help others? When I want to do map dowsing, I call him and take up my Aurameter.” (an instrument with a pivoted rod at the end of which is a ball, forming a type of pendulum – his famous invention for dowsing. MFL.) “He comes and makes known his presence by flipping the Aurameter (pendulum) twice to the right. I then explain to him (vocally) what I want to find out, giving him the information about the particular property or area I want to cover, and I ask him how much time he will need, an hour? a day? or more? He tells me (speaking by arranged code through movements of the balanced Aurameter pendulum) and then, after that time has elapsed, if he says he is ready to shoot, I sit down and let him guide the Aurameter. The findings to date, by this form of map dowsing, are truly out of this world, almost unbelievable but that is a story by itself.”

WING ANDERSON, HEAD OF THE FAITHISTS IN U.S.A., wrote: “In reading your No. 20 HUNA VISTAS I note that you are recognizing the fact that there may be errors In your understanding of Huna. Of one or two real Kahunas I have met I have learned from them that some, if not many, of your ideas are far from correct. This letter is not intended to be destructive or critical but is, I hope, helpful in setting you right on one or two points. I do not pretend to be an authority on HUNA but truth is truth no matter what its name or dress and I have found more truth and factual explanations in OAHSPE than in any other thousand books.

“If the friend you tell of (HRA Gary A. Watts) would read OAHSPE he would learn what voice it is he hears. It is that of a spirit friend or relative or a ‘familiar spirit’. You would probably call it an ‘eating companion’. It is not the voice of his Aumakua, as the Aumakua- which is an ‘Ashar’ – never makes objective contact with us but speaks through hunches, inspiration, original ideas and one’s conscience. I will find the reference for you (in Oahspe) which tells of the training of a Aumakua or Ashar, and the education it must have to qualify as a Aumakua. Do you still have a ‘fixation’ against OAHSPE? If so are you psychologist enough to reason why? And do you have the ability to overcome that fixation?

“I KNOW what the ‘Aunihipili’ is. It is an animal spirit born mature with the ability to care for the corporeal body and has jurisdiction over all bodily activities as well as control of memorizing and recall. The memory record is not in the brain but in the soul or the ether, whichever you wish. The ‘Auhane’ is a human spirit that enters the body with the first breath after birth and knows nothing. Only as a child developes does its reasoning power unfold and it take command over the animal body spirit. The subconscious mind is the composite mind of all the cells of the body and is negative or the activating mind. The conscious mind of the human spirit is positive or the directin mind. The Superconscious mind is the mind of the Aumakua or ASHAR. It is neutral and presents truth but never commands one to abide by it. It is the inspirational mind.

“There will be no reformation of the religious, economic, money and social system. All will pass today as in all the past by destruction through revolution.

Revolution is much closer in the U.S.A. than people realize … A new religion will be the re-establishment of the oldest religion on earth – worship of Jehovih the CREATOR, Great Spirit, Architect of the Universe, the great I Am or whatever term you wish to apply to the CREATOR – SUSTAINER – DESTROYER. Look about you and see the destruction of Capitalism, Christianity and old systems all over the world. Realize that both destruction and creation are occuring at the same time. The U.S.A. is riding on the outgoing tide. The Socialist nations are with the incoming tide.

“You say, ‘Nothing better than Huna to use.'” (I wrote: We can measure everything in terms of Huna for the present, having nothing better to use. MFL) “Huna is kindergarden education. OAHSPE is Summa Cum Laude post graduate education  and you spurn it – No need to worry about religion. In the third act of the world war of 49 years – 7×7 – from 1914 thru 1964, all great false religions based on worship of a man born of woman will go down. Christianity will be the last, and by that time the human race will be so nauseated with the wars, death, starvation and destruction caused by Christians that the religion will be spewed out and a world religion of UNITY will replace them all. Much of the world is following the U.S.S.R. into an economy of abundance but the U.S.A. will have to be driven to it. Following World War III, we will have a BROTHERHOOD OF NATIONS which will be a grand and glorious success. I enclose literature telling where to find information on the ASHARS in OAHSPE. Read the facts about the Aumakua.”

THE AUMAKUA IS APPROVED by a stranger who wrote recently, “A little over a year ago, at the lowest ebb of my life, I experienced nothing short of a miracle of my own, and came into the realization that I possessed a Higher Self. Before that time, although I had been a Straight A Student all through high school and Stanford University, the circumstances of my life since birth had been so devastating that I was filled with tensions, anxieties, etc. and psychiatrists had failed to help me. Since this miracle, it seems that my mind has cleared and I began to read and study as never before to gain a sounder philosophy by which to live. Since January, 1960, I have studied and read Unity, Christian Science, Religious Science, Yoga, Taoism, Brahamanism, Mohammedanism, Buddhism, and have studied Astrology and the Tarot. I feel that whoever has had a hand in guiding me toward further and further enlightenment, (and I undoubtedly have been guided in my learning, as books have come to me out of nowhere, and I have been able to comprehend and learn as never before, like I was fitting the pieces into place one by one in a gigantic jigsaw puzzle), has now led me straight to your door and your wonderful findings on the Kahuna Science.

“HRA L. B. and I are both students of HRA Dr. Nan McCurdy, who is an ardent believer and practitioner of Huna Science, and although I am still facing many problems because of my years of confused thinking, I am now confident that in time, with the aid of your books and practice on my own, I will be able to solve those problems and realize some of my most cherished goals in this life.”

IT IS NO USE, according to a letter from HRA M. C. of California, who sent a booklet which I had not seen for almost eight years – one telling in a most impressive way how the Jews had planned and plotted for centuries to rule the world and were at last about to take over on all fronts with their key men in key positions in every government of any size or importance. She writes, “This may seem a far cry from Huna” (and our project of outlining a world religion, MFL), “yet a social order planned for ages and making rapid strides today is going to incorporate its religion.”

PERHAPS A PART OF THE NEW PSYCHO-RELIGIOUS NECESSITY is even such a little thing. As this one suggested by HRA W.P. in Washington State. She writes, “Here’s a cute trick that works for ME. Write a question which can be answered with a yes or no. Keep it simple. Fix it up in advance with (Anihipili) George that black means NO and white means YES. If you dream of anything black, it means NO. I got four dreams of black the first time I tried it.”

DON’T FORGET TO INCLUDE SUBUD, reminds HRA Charles Pitts in a tape letter.

He reports that he, as well as most of the old Sunnyvale, Calif. Huna Group of several years back, are trying out Subud with considerable enthusiasm. In his own case, he has felt something very definite in the “latihans” or sittings, although he has but a very vague idea as to whether it is impersonal or not as “the Power.” He also has found a most encouraging healing effect … Another HRA and her close friend are working to construct a system similar to, and including parts of, Kitselman’s “E-Therapy … Still another HRA writes and sends a pamphlet to remind me of the Bahai religion and to show me a picture of the 2 million dollar new temple the USA followers have built. Yes, when we have finished a quick look at the ancient religions, we will take up these.

CONSTRUCTING A WORLD RELIGION — Continuing Part One

THE RESPONSE TO THE PRELIMINARY REMARKS made in HV20, about the proposed outlining of a World Religion (plus a foundation of psychology) was good, as response goes in the HRA. About a dozen of you (too early yet for the 75 overseas HRAs to reply) have been sufficiently interested to send in comments, some of which I have given in the earlier pages of this issue. One thing becomes at once apparent. This is that we are going to have trouble if we accept any one religion or “revealed” set of beliefs as THE authority. It is also to be noted that Huna comes in for its full share of criticism and that our present reconstruction of this ancient system may have to be re-examined and all its beliefs (if accepted) again argued through in comparison of points in other beliefs. In other words, we MUST START WITH A CLEAN SLATE and must try to get back to the VERY BEGINNINGS for our start.

I WILL SOON BE SENDING EACH OF YOU A BOOK so that we can have a partial text for use as we study the several ancient religions. It is one reviewed and mentioned in a recent H.V., and is a “paperback” titled THE GREAT RELIGIONS BY WHICH MEN LIVE. Knowing that only a few of you would take the trouble to get the book for yourselves, I have taken the chance of offending and have ordered a copy for you. I have already purchased envelopes in which to send the books and have them stamped and addressed, ready to be put to use the moment the books arrive. I am quite aware that some of you will object to the book if you hold that some revealed religion, (and there are several) is the last and final authority, and that comparisons of beliefs are, therefore, wicked. Many of you will not be interested in this projected study of the sources and validity of beliefs and will not wish to read the book or to take part in the making of a tentative outline (which will probably never be used, but which will help some of us clear our concepts by working it out). Others will be too busy ever to read the book, but if it is not thrown away, the discussions which may come in later H.V. issues may cause the reading or at least checking into portions of the text. The book is a GIFT FROM CIGBO, so do not return it if you do not care for it, or he may get discouraged and stop scratching up “stuff” for our use from the bottom of his cigar box.

WE WILL USE THE BOOK IN THE FOLLOWING WAY: Instead of quoting, and so running the risk of infringing on the copyright, we will refer to material by first giving the page and then the number of the paragraph, counting from the top of the page down, and if at the top of the page there is a part of a paragraph carried on from the preceding page, it is to be counted as the first paragraph. For instance, vii 1 4 would indicate the first page of the Foreword, this being numbered with letters, and the paragraphs from the first through the 4th. If the code should read, 73 2 to end, then we would have indicated page 73 and a reading to start with the second paragraph and run through to the end of the chapter. If a part in a long paragraph is to be considered, we may have: 65 3 starting with “Not by birth.” I think this will work if we all have the patience to use the code. And, if we take up other books later, we may continue to use the code. I have in mind the various “Bibles” of different religions and the newer books presented as substitutes for the Bibles of the old religions, such as “Oahspe,” “Urantia” and Percival’s Thinking and Destiny.

NOW LET US GET OFF TO AN EASY START

There is no hurry, and our conclusions will be anything but final. I will start the ball rolling and the rest of you can begin to give your slants on the basic things which will occupy us in this study.

FIRST: What shall we say that “RELIGION” is? The origin of the word gives us the meaning of, “a tying back.” The man is once more tied in or put into a state of working contact with something from which (without the “tying back”) he is cut off in such a way that he is less effective.

This brings up the immediate question of WHY man needs to be “tied back” or reunited with a SOMETHING which he can very poorly understand. To answer this question we need to know the nature of both God and Man, which we DO NOT. All we have is a set of ready made answers or DOGMAS. Down through the ages, men have wondered who made them and the universe surrounding them. They have made guesses, or had visions or revelations … then have appointed themselves to instruct others. They cried, “This says the Lord,” and so supplied themselves with needed authority provided, of course, that the listeners already believed in the existence of a “Lord.” Thus were established foundation dogmas, and on those foundations dogma after dogma came to be set into place.

Today we are moving out of the AGE OF AUTHORITIES and into the AGE OF SCIENTIFIC SPECULATION. The idea of God has expanded with the telescope and microscope. The wider and deeper the field, the more the concept has had to expand to cover a universe beyond imagining in size and a set of microscopic universes on the level of the atom which contains its electrons revolving about their own system centers. Learned men observe the evidence of EVOLUTION on all sides and tend to look upon the ULTIMATE as something also evolving. The man is next added to the picture as an evolving unit, and if he is assigned a “soul” of sorts, that element in him is also suspected of having evolution as its excuse for being.

AT THIS POINT WE NEED A DEFINITION  OF “DOGMA.” As I see it, a dogma is something we cannot prove. It is the guess or “revelation” presented by some man, and it usually contradicts the dogmas of all other “teachers” or “prophets.” A dogma is a belief which has to be accepted on FAITH rather than on reason. (This applies to the spirits of men speaking through mediums, also.)

WE CAN BEGIN CLEANING OUR SLATE by wiping from it ALL the dogmas.

THE SECOND ITEM IN CONSIDERING RELIGION comes next. Basically, a religion has a God concept. To this is added the belief that WORSHIP IS NECESSARY and that man must please God by worship or chance His wrath. As soon as the idea of worship becomes established, dogmas rise rapidly, with rituals, temples, taboos and an elaborate list of acts which must be performed to please or appease God (or the many gods of earlier forms of belief). Some acts come to be considered “bad” or “sinful.” Aside from religion, but always contemporary with it, come the many SUPERSTITIONS, and these seem to spring from the ground and to be traded between tribes and races so that they spread their unreasonable commands and promises around the world. The superstitions invade the religions. In fact, it may be said that early religions all grew from a primitive set of superstitions. Men may not believe in the validity of a superstition, but may fear to push it aside.

LOVE, FEAR AND THE DESIRE FOR HELP are largely the motivation behind the worship of a Higher Something. We must ask ourselves what justification there is for such motivation aside from the dogmatic “commands” of religion.

LOVE is justified, it seems safe to say, by the gratitude we feel when we look at the beauties and bounties provided by God in our surroundings. It is awe and love on a scale quite above the physical level, but imagination makes some of us sure that God is very near and personal, so that He may be loved as a FATHER.

AT THIS POINT WE MUST CONSIDER THE LEVELS OF INTELLIGENCE of those who worship and come to love God. The P.A. readings give us about seven levels in terms of “degrees Biometric”, and we have learned that the people in the lower levels simply cannot grasp abstractions. They cannot imagine God as an impersonal and unqualified SOMETHING. This concept is for the degree levels above 330 and will better fit those above 355, while only those above the 450 level will actually be at home in this thin atmosphere of non- materiality. For the masses, where the degree reading is, on the average, below 260 degrees, there has always had to be some “SON OF GOD” or man god to be imagined as a material person, even if, after a life on earth, he lives in a resurrected material body in a heaven material enough to give him an abode.

(WE ARE NOT READY AS YET IN OUR OUTLINING to discuss the Aumakua as the answer to the problem of giving all levels a man-god or a greatly stepped-down and very personal bit of the Supreme. In due time we will discuss this.)

FEAR OF GOD was once a great motivation for worship. Men lacked scientific knowledge which now tells us that plagues, floods, tornado winds and crop blights have nothing to do with the idea that God is punishing men. The brand of fear engendered by the dogmatic elements in religion had, we must admit, some social value in preventing one man from hurting another, but there is no proof, in terms of modern scientific knowledge, that God punishes men in groups or as individuals. The proof is to the contrary. We wonder whether the dicta of our religions are correct and whether or not God is really just. We see the “wicked flourishing as the green bay tree.” The ancient answer of a karmic punishment has no value unless one accepts the belief that the punishment is NOT for this life, but is (for some strange reason) delayed until a following  incarnation. In the BASIC OUTLINE which we are discussing, there is no room at the high starting point for the conclusion that FEAR OF GOD is in any way justified.

THE DESIRE FOR HELP is, unquestionably, the greatest motivation for worship. We so often are confronted by difficulties which we do not know how to meet. IF WE BELIEVE IN A SOMETHING GREATER AND MORE POWERFUL THAN ourselves, what is more natural than an effort to get HELP from IT in clearing away the difficulties? We also have learned from experience that new difficulties may confront us tomorrow or the next day, so we pray for PROTECTION, even when no present danger threatens. Looking at this angle from the scientific point of view, there is little or nothing to indicate that a God spread through a universe more vast than we can imagine would hear the prayer of a mortal and answer It. We pray for rain in a whole district, or we pray as a group of nations for world peace. Out of a hundred prayers, so few are answered that the answers are put down as ACCIDENTS. (The prayers which seem most certainly answered and subject to testing for reality are those of a kind where something much smaller and closer and more personal than the Ultimate God was addressed in prayer. Healings with the aid of the spirits of the departed are well verified and often spectacular. The psychological attitude and faith accompanying prayer may cause healing. The “saints” are personal and near, as is Jesus, to whom men pray as the intermediary passing the prayer to God.) (We will come to this lower point in our work on the OUTLINE and add the Huna concept of the Aumakua all in good time.)

Religion, as a “tying back” to God, therefore, (it seems to me) appears to have this original meaning only in terms of the many dogmas invented around the world. There is no proof that man has ever become untied. The “fall” of man is a dogma, as is the supposed need for salvation because of some postulated “original sin”. In the religions of India there has been much more stress placed on the supposed separation of man from God. Dogmas teach that man was once a part of Brahma and that his whole purpose of life is to do what is necessary to enable him to escape living and return to the original state – not of being “tied back,” but of being absorbed, as a drop of water by the ocean. The whole anti-social practice of withdrawing from life to do nothing but try for re-absorption in Brahma, as seen in Yoga cults, falls under the classification we are making of “dogmatic.”

On the other hand, at the top of our OUTLINE, we cannot avoid making a place for a very special question. Once we recognize a Supreme and have admitted that all we can understand of IT is that we, as individuals, are a part of the CREATED UNIVERSE, we have to ask what can be known of the part we must play. We may also ask WHY we are here. What is the purpose of living? This inevitably leads to the further question of WHY was the universe created? Or the germs and plants and animals?

EVOLUTION is the only answer suggested by science. It is the most modern and probably the best answer we have, but it lacks the WHY. We can, unquestionably, see mankind HERE and caught in the very midst of evolution from one condition of being toward another which we suppose will be better. We also see that the problem is not one of HOW to escape from living and the task of evolving and HELPING ALONG THE WHOLE TREND OF EVOLUTION.

THIS REJECTION OF DOGMA and consideration of the problem on its own merits and in the light of evolution, lays the problem of WHY and, especially, HOW, right back in our laps. It would be easy and simple to reject the dogmas of the several ancient religions (to say nothing of those of modern origin), but in order to do this we need to pause to consider with care what men of the past have done and thought and concluded in trying to answer the age old problem of WHY and HOW.

We cannot work with the materials of religion to try to outline a better form of belief and action if we are lacking information concerning the religions of the past and present. We must examine them with an eye to locating their sources, their verities, and their foolishness. At the same time we must watch at every turn for the inner, less tangible and intuitional values and their fragile proofs. Read the little book Cigbo is sending soon (he hopes) and keep these things in mind as you read. Order your thoughts for top elements in the outline…. and write. MFL